


Advent Tales 2020

by WonderstruckGuardian



Series: Candle, Candle, Burning Bright [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (TV), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), Awesome Rose Tyler, BAMF Jenny, BAMF Morgana (Merlin), Crossover, Dimension-Hopping Rose Tyler, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, Flying the TARDIS is hard, Friendship, Humor, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I swear I'm not a crazy cat lady, Idiots in Love, Immortal Leon (Merlin), Jack Frost is confused, Jamie Bennett is a Reluctant Whovian, Multi, Tags May Change, The Last Dragonlord and the Oncoming Storm are good bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29928417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderstruckGuardian/pseuds/WonderstruckGuardian
Summary: It becomes a very timey-wimey Advent in 2020 for the Guardians and their believers when the walls between universes mysteriously start thinning. The Guardian Stone has been stolen from North’s Workshop, and Jamie Bennett’s attic may or may not be infested with portals again. He and Jack Frost will need to embark on their craziest adventure yet in order to get the Guardian Stone back and mend the walls between worlds. This could involve befriending figures from a land of myth and a time of magic, saving all of reality from annihilation alongside the stuff of legend, and possibly changing the course of a few universes for the better.
Relationships: Jack Frost & Jamie Bennett, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Series: Candle, Candle, Burning Bright [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623967
Kudos: 3





	1. Love Don't Roam Across the Multiverse

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Yes, this Advent Tales really is a three-way crossover between ROTG, Merlin, and Doctor Who. And no, I can’t believe I actually wrote this. I know it's March and nowhere near Advent, but I didn't have time to finish this in time for Advent last year.
> 
> **IF YOU HAVE NEVER READ THE PREVIOUS ADVENT TALES, I suggest reading at least the last chapter of Advent Tales (2014) for context, but it’s not absolutely necessary. In short, what happens is that Guardian of Fun and Winter Spirit Jack Frost and his first believer Jamie Bennett go on a strange series of adventures through a rogue time portal in Jamie's attic in December 2014, which ultimately leads them to accidentally bring a tribble infused with superhuman blood from the USS Enterprise back to Jamie’s house. They lose track of the tribble at the end of the fic, and believe they'll never find it again…
> 
> As usual, the Advent poem at the beginning isn't mine.

**Candle, Candle, burning bright, share with us your golden light;**  
**The FIRST light of Advent is the light of stones, stones that make crystals, seashells, and our bones;**  
**The SECOND light of Advent is light of plants, green plants that grow, and seed, and in the breezes dance;**  
**The THIRD light of Advent is for animals of the Earth, great and small, steadily they live, and bring the soul to birth;**  
**The FOURTH light of Advent is the light of Humanity, those who can choose to bring goodness to every living thing.**

~ ~ ~ ~

**[December 22, 2014 / Burgess, PA, USA]**

A small, pale pink space pod with small protrusions resembling cat ears on its top materialized silently in the bedroom of a boy named Jamie Bennett. The boy was not present to see the pod appear. No, he was with his family in the living room, talking about the very strange adventure he’d had earlier that day. Thus, no one saw the top of the pod open, letting an furry, orange, four-legged creature slip out.

The creature sniffed the air, her pointed ears turning this way and that as she listened to the conversation happening one floor.

Something was not quite right here. She looked around in confusion, her green eyes gleaming in the low light.

‘ _Oh, wonderful,’_ she thought sarcastically. This quaint little house was nowhere near her intended destination! And not only that, but another delicate sniff of the air told her that she wasn’t even in the right universe. 

That didn’t bode well for her mission. She had been sent to find a particular heartbroken soul and help them to feel a less despondent through her own brand of…attitude adjustments, and possibly a few secret universe alterations too. 

She was Rose-the-Cat, so inelegantly named because her previous hearts-broken Person had just lost a human named Rose to a parallel universe, and thus decided to name every other creature he came across “Rose-the-[ _insert species here_ ]”. That had been an unfortunate decision, and almost always annoying, but oh well. The cat had left that Person behind for now, for the sake of her agency’s mission. 

The smell of this particular world made her nose tingle and itch. She sneezed twice at the sensation, mentally cursing her pod’s navigation systems. She should have landed on a cold beach in Norway in front of Rose-the-Human. As such, it would seem the Multiverse did not want to cooperate with her today. 

That was the moment the cat heard a low growling sound in the dark room. She whipped around, unsheathing her claws as she fixated on the darkness under the bed. There was something moving, just there, hidden in the shadows. A dark, spherical shape. 

_Hmm._

“Come out from there!” Rose-the-Cat hissed.

The round thing stopped moving. 

“I know you’re not a mouse. If you don’t show yourself, I’ll drag you out here myself.”

The thing was silent for a moment, hopefully considering Rose-the-Cat’s threat. Finally, it moved toward her, much faster than she’s expected. She arched her back a little, fluffing out her ginger coat to make herself seem bigger.

The thing from under the bed was semi-spherical, surprisingly furry, and about the size of a grown chihuahua. Rose-the-Cat blinked at it in surprise, wondering if this universe had monstrous, sentient dust bunnies. If so, her former Person would have been much better suited to dealing with this world.

The dust-covered ball of fur hissed back at her. “Mistake!”

Rose-the-Cat’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?!” She asked, shocked that something hiding under a bed could be so immediately insulting. “Did you just call me a _mistake_?” 

The creature rumbled irritably. “No. Made mistake. No way home. Stuck.”

“What are you?” She asked, relaxing her defensive stance ever so slightly. This thing didn’t seem too threatening.

“Mostly called tribble.”

That seemed like a strange way to phrase it. The cat tried again. “What does your species _call_ themselves?” 

The alien furball (and it was clearly alien) let out a complicated series of rumbles, squeaks and purrs that in no way translated through Rose-the-Cat’s universal translation implant. 

She sighed, flickering her ears in annoyance. “Ok, let’s go with tribble for now then, because I can’t say what you just said. What’s your name? How did you get here?” She asked.

“From sky ship. Was hungry. Saw food, but not food. Taken with not-food through door, but not door. Mistake. Stuck.”

This was going to take forever if that was the best speaking capability this ‘tribble’ possessed. Rose-the-Cat did not have such time to waste. Her newest mission was waiting for her, and the gaps between universes were famously difficult to navigate. If she didn’t leave soon, she could lose the one chance among millions of possible timelines where she could successfully reunite her previous Person with Rose-the-Human. Then, at least the two heartbroken (and hearts-broken) idiots could be idiots in love again, and Rose-the-Cat could finally do what she wanted in peace. 

Despite all of Rose’s attempts to ignore it, she could hear her previous Person’s voice in her head telling her that she should help this—this _thing_ , whatever it was. It had probably been transported off of a spaceship by teleport or something similar, based on its description of a ‘door but not door’.

“If you want to come with me, I’m Rose-the-Cat,” she offered. “It’s a terrible name, I know. I have to complete my mission, but after that I could take you back to wherever you came from. My pod can go almost anywhere, and in most universes too, if, you know, that sort of thing matters. Just don’t tell anyone about that part, or I really will have to kill you.”

The tribble lacked any sort of discernible face or eyes as far as she could tell, but the cat was quite sure it was looking doubtfully at the pink pod behind her, sizing it up.

She waited impatiently for an answer, and turned to leave when she received none. 

“Wait!” The tribble suddenly trilled. “Where going?” 

Rose-the-Cat rolled her eyes. “You probably wouldn’t understand much of it. I have to hop over to a parallel universe my former Person called ‘Pete’s World’. I need to find someone there and help them.”

“Why help?"

“Because that’s what I do. It’s my job. And if you don’t make up your mind in the next ten seconds, my offer to help you will be null and void.”

The tribble rumbled decisively to itself and raced as fast as it could (much faster than Rose had expected) across the floor to the pink pod. It crawled up the side and dropping in through the hatch without hesitation. “Coming with. More exciting than under bed.” It said once it was safely inside, its voice echoing slightly.

Rose-the-Cat quickly followed the tribble, eager to get moving again. The pod’s hatch automatically lowered shut behind her. Once inside, the cat hopped up onto the pilot’s seat and pressed her right front paw to the touch screen on the navigation console. The pod’s systems came to life within seconds, lights blinking in sequence on the console, screens flickering on, and trans-dimensional engines humming as they came online.

Behind her, he tribble inched across the solid metal floor, taking everything in with immense curiosity. “Bigger inside. Small outside,” it trilled quietly.

“Dimensional engineering.” Rose-the-Cat replied distractedly, setting her course for and starting the pod’s dematerialization sequence. The tribble went silent, watching her work. 

Once she was satisfied that they weren’t going to be torn apart in the Void between universes, the cat jumped down from the pilot’s seat and sat down in front of the tribble, eyeing it suspiciously. Its fur was actually more silver than gray, now that she could see it clearly. 

“What’s your name then?” She asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“Connie,” it replied.

That was definitely not what Rose-the-Cat had been expecting to hear. “Connie? But that’s an Earth name. A human name.” She narrowed her eyes at the tribble. Was it being serious? 

“Like Connie!” The tribble insisted.

Rose-the-Cat rolled her eyes. “Fine. Connie it is, then.”

“How long help take?” Connie asked.

“You mean my mission?” The cat considered her answer carefully. “Unfortunately, that depends on how much of an idiot my former Person is. He’s— Okay, in simple terms, he’s a combination of great hair, immense power, and questionable judgement. He could also accidentally destroy a few universes at once if he so much as licks the wrong thing at the wrong time—which is more likely to happen than you’d think. That’s why I’m going to need all the help I can get…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured that Merlin and the Doctor could probably exist in the same universe. After all, King Arthur is supposed to return when "Albion's need is greatest", and when else would that be but when the entire planet has been stolen and invaded by Daleks? Also, Jamie Bennett and Jack Frost come from an entirely different universe, a universe with a lot of openly used magic, and that could make all the difference in Merlin and the Doctor’s lives.


	2. Rockin' Around the Christmas - Oh Wait

**[December 2020 / Burgess, PA]**

The holiday season had officially begun, and 18-year-old Jamie Bennett couldn’t have been happier about it. 2020 had been a truly awful year for, well, everyone. Jamie had been looking forward to the fun of the winter holidays since April, or maybe March. Basically, since the pandemic had started.   
  
Since the start of the school year, Jamie had done what he could to help his younger sister Sophie with her online middle school classes, and to take care of everyday tasks their mom didn’t have time to deal with now. He had decided to take a year off from school instead of starting college due to COVID-19 concerns. His mother also worked long, exhausting hours as a nurse at the local hospital, and someone needed to be home with Sophie. She had turned 12 that September.

Unable to see most of his friends except over Zoom, Jamie was extremely glad his _best_ friend could still visit him safely. Like the other magical spirits and Guardians of Childhood that Jamie had gotten to know over the past eight years, Jack Frost, the spirit of Winter and Guardian of Fun, was impervious to mortal viruses.

This particular day, the day that Jamie would forever remember as the day his universe literally changed forever, it was snowing heavily in Burgess. He and Sophie were sitting at the kitchen counter, working through an online review for her Algebra 1 class.

“How about you finish the review, and I’ll make some us some hot chocolate to celebrate when you finish it?” Jamie eventually suggested. It was late in the afternoon; he and Sophie would have start making dinner soon. 

“Always!” Sophie grinned, suddenly a little more motivated to finish her schoolwork for the day.

“You got this!” Jamie said, shooting her an encouraging smile of his own as he pulled two mugs out of the cupboard. He had only just opened the fridge to get the milk for hot chocolate when he heard a familiar tapping sound. He looked up.

“Jack!” Sophie exclaimed happily, sliding off the stool at the counter behind him and rushing to the window above the sink.

Jack Frost was indeed hovering outside with his magical shepherd staff of winter in hand, knocking on the window a little impatiently. Jamie helped Sophie open the window to let the winter spirit in, closing quickly behind him. Jamie couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face at the arrival of Jack Frost, and neither could Sophie. The Guardian was just as happy to see them.

“Jamie! Sophie!” He cried joyfully, setting his staff aside so he could accept Sophie’s usual bear hug.

“I was wondering when you’d finally drop by,” Jamie said with a grin. It was kind of a tradition for them now. Jack always stopped by the Bennett’s house when he brought snow to the area.

Despite greeting both of them enthusiastically with his famous smile that could light up a room, Jack’s happy mood faded quickly. 

“Is something wrong?” Jamie asked curiously, watching Jack’s smile slip when Sophie finally released him. 

Jack sighed, his cerulean blue eyes meeting Jamie’s, and it was then that the teen noticed the Guardian’s exhausted demeanor. He had always been pale, and his hair was windswept as usual (quite literally too, since Jack flew everywhere on the wind.) Now, though, he looked like Jamie and Sophie’s mother after a particularly stressful day at work, tired and tense.

“The Guardian Stone was stolen earlier today from North’s Workshop,” Jack revealed. “North’s about to completely lose his mind, I swear, with it being so close to Christmas and all.” (North, of course, being Santa Claus.) 

“What? How? Who took it? Was it Pitch?” Jamie asked. He had often visited North’s Workshop at the North Pole in the past few years, and one of his first impressions of it was that it seemed practically impenetrable. Like a beautiful, eclectic, semi-spherically shaped fortress. (There was even an armory for the yeti workers!)

Jack's shoulders slumped a little.. “See, that’s the thing—”

“What’s the Guardian Stone?” Sophie interrupted.

Jack held his hands out in front of him in an estimate of the Stone’s size. “Remember that big glowing crystal, about this big, that North showed you guys when I took you to the Workshop for the first time? It’s that thing. The Man in the Moon himself gave it to North when the Guardians first came together to defeat Pitch Black hundreds of years ago. It’s how we talk to MiM now when we need to see the bigger picture, or find out about a new magical threat to children.” Jack’s tone took on a slightly despondent edge as he went on.

Understanding dawned in Sophie's eyes. “It’s really not good that it’s been stolen then."

“Exactly. We’ve had to talk to MiM more than ever this year, as you know,” Jack added. “With COVID-19, growing numbers of refugee kids, and global warming causing gigantic storms and fires all over the world…It would be very hard keeping track of it all and protect as many children as we can without being able to communicate with MiM. From his palace on the Moon, he has a bigger perspective of things happening down here.”

“But who took the stone? It wasn’t Pitch, was it?” Jamie anxiously repeated his earlier question.

Jack’s answer was not very reassuring. “We don’t really know. That’s the thing, we have no idea who took it. North says it happened out of the blue. The crystal just rose out of its storage chamber beneath the floor of his workshop for no reason, and then it disappeared in a flash of glowing, blindingly light. It was likely taken through some kind of portal.”

The description of said portal reminded Jamie of the rogue time portals that had randomly (and persistently) appeared in his attic in the last three months of 2014. Those portals hadn’t been blindingly bright, but they certainly hadn’t been invisible either, shimmering and swirling in the middle of a wall, the floor, or one memorable time, on the very middle step of the pull-down attic ladder. Jamie had fallen through that one twice, Jack had gone after him both times, and they had ended up having two very strange time-travel excursions to India in 700 BCE. That had only been one of many such adventures that year for Jamie and Jack—at least until Tempus, the Spirit of Time, had finally stopped the portals from forming in Jamie’s attic, and that was that.

“Does Tempus know about the Guardian Stone being taken?” Jamie asked.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, he showed up an hour after North called us to the Workshop.” He said, frowning slightly.

Jamie had a feeling that he hadn’t liked something Tempus had told him and the other Guardians. “And?” He prompted.

“He said it’s happening everywhere. These strange portals are like nothing he’s seen before—”

“Of course not.” Sophie muttered under her breath.

“—and they’re appearing around the world, mostly in places with high concentrations of magic, Bunny’s warren, Mother Nature’s sanctuary, and Tooth’s palace included,” Jack continued. “We checked all the places we could. Part of a tooth box tower is completely gone, and so are some of Bunny’s egg tulips.”

“Wow. That’s just…Wow.” Jamie didn’t know what else to say.

“Can we help you look for them?” Sophie asked, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet.

Jack glanced uncertainly from her to Jamie, well aware by now that they couldn’t simply run off on adventures with him like they had when they were younger. “Tempus suggested I check your attic when I came to visit, just to make sure no new portals had formed.” He said finally.

Of course there had to be a catch, another reason for Jack to visit other than simply wanting to. He may have been the Guardian of Fun, protector of children’s joy, but the challenges of 2020 had affected the Guardians along with the rest of the world. He hadn’t been able to visit Burgess nearly as much as in previous years, not when so many children in other places had desperately needed a Guardian’s help.

“Well, if there is a portal in the attic again, I guess I want to know about it sooner than later.” Jamie said, and led the way out of the kitchen. Sophie followed him and Jack, not about to go back to her schoolwork when there was a magical mystery afoot.

The moment the three of them climbed up the ladder into the attic and turned on the light, Jamie knew something was wrong. They all did.

“Um, our Christmas tree’s gone.” Sophie said, pointing to the corner where the Bennett’s fake tree usually stood in its stand. 

“So are all the Christmas decorations!” Jamie exclaimed, slowly turning in a circle to take in their attic that that was suddenly much emptier than it should be.

Jack’s hand flew out to grab Jamie’s arm and hold him still. “Wait,” he said quietly, “do you hear that?”

Jamie and Sophie instantly stopped moving. At first, they could only hear the sound of the wind whistling outside, and the occasional car driving by the house. Then, out of the silence, came whispers and melodic notes quietly cascading over each other. 

“That’s a little creepy. Nice, but creepy.” Sophie whispered, moving slightly behind Jamie. 

“Jack…” Jamie looked to the Guardian for answers and reassurance. 

Jack looked back at him, his expression a mixture of apologetic and grim resignation. “According to Tempus, that’s what the new portals start out sounding like before they appear.”

“So there _is_ a portal up here?” Jamie looked around wildly for any sign of one forming. “Oh no. No, no, no. It was kind of fun last time this happened, but I am not doing that again. Not this year! Why is it always my attic? There’s literally nothing magical up here anymore!”

“Maybe there actually is something in your house with a magical history, but we’ve just never come across it,” Jack mused. Then he gestured with his staff in the direction of the ladder. “Come on you two, we should get out of here before the portal opens.” 

Sophie didn’t need to be told twice. She was almost all the way down the attic ladder before Jamie had even turned around. He had just put his foot down on the top step, fully prepared to follow her, when something on the far wall of the attic exploded in to being. 

Jack and Jamie both turned fearfully just in time to see white light blast outward from a tiny crack in the wall. The light and energy of the portal knocked over boxes, stacks of magazines, and old furniture as the crack in the wall grew steadily into a gaping hole. The melodic voices became louder and louder, until they unified and transformed into a deafening howl. The howl of a fierce lone wolf. 

Jamie couldn’t have moved away from the portal if he’d wanted to. Static energy raced up his spine, his limbs freezing in place. Terrified, he squeezed his eyes shut against the light. The howling reverberated through his body and mind as a new, sharper tingling sensation bolted through him.

In another burst of white light, Jamie disappeared into thin air along with Jack Frost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Guardians:
> 
> Jack Frost - Spirit of Winter, Guardian of Fun  
> North - Santa Claus, Guardian of Wonder  
> Tooth - Tooth Fairy, Guardian of (Childhood) Memories  
> Bunny - Easter Bunny, Guardian of Hope  
> Sandy - the Sandman, Guardian of Dreams  
> MiM - The Man in the Moon, the Guardians distant, sort of leader


End file.
